N THE FIRST YEAR OF BUSINESS, I was told by a friend of the owner,
the restaurant made a profit of nearly one million yuan, or about
$173,000, flourishing by word of mouth alone. But commercial
advertising is gaining importance in Shanghai with surges in pur
chasing power. Last year, advertising appearing on city buses alone sold
for more than ten million yuan, and for those who bought the space that
may be a golden bargain: There are 16 million boardings on Shanghai's
public transport buses every workday.
The buses number in the thousands, and so do the taxis. Add to them
the growing number of private cars, the trucks, millions of bicycles, and
the pedestrian traffic that washes through the streets like floodwaters.
Take them all together and the result is a disquieting urban experience.
Only Bangkok, it is said, has traffic problems of such magnitude.
In downtown Shanghai, gridlock-the dreaded sheepshank knots of
paralyzed traffic scored with the tinkling of a thousand bicycle bells
occurs with dismal regularity.
Most of the streets are much too narrow to carry the traffic loads. To
widen them would mean destruction of living quarters and displacement
of tens of thousands. "Traffic control in the city is minuscule," said
Zukang Yao, professor of road and traffic engineering at Tongji Univer
sity in Shanghai. "But more than anything, the problem is with the bicy
cles. They occupy more space on the streets than vehicular traffic."
Indeed, the prevailing condition is one of calm chaos, with six or seven
million persons riding bicycles through the city, all pumping, it seems, at
Shanghai:Where China's Pastand Future Meet